Arthur Tress

A Look At… Arthur Tress and his suitably surreal halloween-esque scenes of ‘magic realism’. Those images are from an old series from the 70s, which were exhibited in a show called Daymares.

Tress was asked to photograph a children’s workshop on creativity where children were encouraged to explore various themes each year. The year he got involved with the workshop, children were looking at the notion of dreams through poetry, painting etc… Inspired by the idea, he pursued it as a personal photo project. Children would be asked about their dreams, nightmares etc, which Tress would then recreate in staged photographs. “In recreating these fantasies there [was] often a combination of actual dream, mythical archetypes, fairytale, horror movie, comic hook, and imaginative play. These inventions often reflect[ed] the child’s inner life, his hopes and fears…”